Michael Brandy is a music producer that has just bought two professionals microphones for his studio. Michael, uses the computer softwere for recording and edit sessions, which the mics will be plugged to.
Identify the device Michael must use in order to process the analog signals coming from the mics to be taken to the computer.
Describe the process in which analog signals are digitalized so they can be understood by the audio edition software.
Evaluate the use of stereo and mono speakers during both live and studio performances.(This question is wrong ad the focus has nothing to do with IT systems. You need to focus the question to the use of Digital Audio Workstation, doing a live performance with digital edition programs, the advantages or disadvantages.)
1. Urban Outfitters, a deparment store, has aon online server by which costumers can access to the online catalogue and buy clothers. They use an extranet to communicate with different companies that provide the store with supplies.
Define the term extranet
An extranet is a private interoganizational information system connecting the intranets of 2 or more companies in a e-market place
Describe what's the process in which a costumer can buy a certain item on the store through the online catalogue.
First, the consumer enters her/his login and password, the server receives the information and accept the request for entering to the online catalogue of the store, then the consumer selects the item that she/he wants to buy with his/her credit card and send the request to the server, the server checks if your bank account has the enough funds for buying the item you selected and , if it does, the server accepts the request of buying the item and charges the money to your credit card. The item will be send to you afterwards.
Explain the security issues that are involved when costumers use Urban Outfitters' onilne catalogue.
Some security issues are that maybe you think you are entering to the official webpage and you upload the information to access your credit card but then you realize that you have suffered from a phishing attack. The information of your credit card has been sent so another person could access to it and steal all your money. Another security issue that may arise is that maybe your computer has a worm so while you send the request to buy an item , the worm will make the program to repeat itself a lot and you may lose a lot of money because of that.
2. New Think is a company dedicated to create IT solutions. Inside the company they have a B2E environment for communication and management. It allows users to send encrypetd messages. A team inside New Think has decided they should communicate about their new project only through encrypted messages.
Define the term encryption
Any procedure used to convert text into cipher text (encrypted message) to prevent anyone but the intended person from reading that data.
Describe two advantages of sending and encrypted message using public-key encryption.
First you can make sure that nobody reads your message but only the intended person that has the private key thus protecting sensible information that could have been sent.
Second, as the message is encrypted you can almost be sure that it won’t get modified by unwanted persons or if modified you can notice it thus keeping the message safe.
Third, this mechanism doesn’t rely on passwords, which can be easily cracked either by a program or by social hacking or in the most common cases you forget them. So the message remains safe.
Fourth, this mechanism uses two keys: a private one and a public one. Both can determine if the message was corrupted and are very difficult to crack.
Explain how the ability to send encrypted messages between the staff, can threaten the company's security.
As the messages can’t be read by anyone and are very hard to crack (as proven in the above question) the company won’t be able to distinguish if two persons are sending work-related information about the new project in order to protect intellectual property or if they are sending each other the plans for kidnapping the CEO because these two encrypted conversations would apparently look exactly the same and therefore threatening the company’s security.
3. The Technological Research University has decided to put a WLAN in its campus. They already have a LAN in the place and it connects all the staff computer. The main aim of the WLAN is to provide teachers and students with access to the university platform, where contents of all their subjects is placed.
Define the term WLAN
A WLAN is a local area network that uses no physical wires. Sometimes a WLAN communicates with a wired LAN for access to its resources.
Describe two possible advantages for teachers when having access to a network.
Teachers can share information with their pupils via Internet, download useful information from different users and use the resources of the network such as hardware (printer) and software (different applications or programs).
Explain how does the school can be sure that only students and teachers connect to the WLAN
They could protect their network with a WEP address that needs an specific password to be accessed. If the user does not know the password, then it will not have access to the network.
Also the school could use a hidden SSID so only the school's staff can enter and the WLAN doesn't appear when any computer scans for available networks thus making sure that only allowed people have access to it.
4. Sweets & Bands Company bought a lot of 10 new computers. They weren't aware that there was no antivirus installed on them until they started using them. The owner has talked to a friend who knows much about computers, and he recommended him to install an antivirus to each computer and place a firewall into the network.
Define the term firewall
A part of a computer system or network that is designed to block unauthorized access.
Define the term antivirus
The antivirus is a program that protects a computer against viruses by identifying and removing any computer viruses found in incoming files, memory and storage media.
Describe two types of computer attacks that a computer without an antivirus can face.
Your computer can suffer for a Denial of service attack which is an assault whose purpose is to disrupt computer access to an Internet service and can also suffer for a spoofing attack which is a tecnigue intruders use to make their network to to appear leggitimate and is not.
Explain why all the computers of Sweets $ Bands should have an antivirus installed.
All the computers should have an antivirus due to the fact that if not they can suffer for several computer attacks that could damage the computer and that could lead to the loss of relevant information abut the company. Furthermore you may lose some important personal information, for example, if your computer suffers for phishing, when accesing to your bank acount or the bank account of the company and write all the information needed to do a transaction, the information will be sent to another place and you could lose all the money in the account because someone else will be able to access to it.
5. A primary school just created a computer lab inside their facilities to teach children basic computer knowlegde and the use of the Internet. After consulting with many experts, the director decided to install a wired connection to connect all the computers instead of a wireless network. They were also told to buy a firewall to control Internet traffic within their network.
Identify at least four components or devices that the wired network should have.
Desktop computers (most common in primary schools), Printer, The firewall system along with the internet acces and a scaner.
Describe three advantages of using wired Internet connections instead of a wireless connection.
First, wired connections are faster. As they don't rely on air signals like a wireless connection,that could be easily interrupted by many external factors such as walls they work faster, because it hard to interrupt a physical connectior, or if interrupted you can easily notice it and fix the problem faster than what a wireless connection will take
Second, they are harder to crack. As they depend on physical wires , it would be very hard for an unwanted person to have access to it becaus ein order to do so that person would have to physically get the cable and connect it to his/her computer, not as in wireless connection, that with a click in about 10min. you can crack a network.
Third, wired connections are relatively cheaper. Consider that the price here in Mexico for 1m of Ethernet cable is from 30-50 pesos and the price for a very cheap wireless anthenna is around 300$, and even if we consider the different currencies arround the world and the nowadays economic crisis it is still a lot cheaper to produce metres and metres of an 8-copper-cable-wire that to produce that same amount of wireless anthennas. Also the prices given by an ISP for a wired connection are lower than the prices for the usage of a wireless one.
Fourth, they are to a certain extent easier to mantain. With wireless connections , even though they seem to not need anything but a wireless anthenna they are trickier to mantain because if there is a problem with the connection you cannot notice it as easy as you could with a wired one, this mainly because in a wired connection there are a lot of factors that could affect your connection that you may not be able to solve quite fast such as wind, thick walls, other wireless connections interfering, a problem with the ISP, a problem with your anthenna among others. In a wired connection you don't have that many factors and if a problem occurs it could be a lot easier to solve. Also even though it looks like a lot of work to give regular maintennance to a wired connection, it is actually easier anf more effective that to give regular maintennance to a WLAN.
Explain why is it useful to have a firewall installed in the network of the school.
Aschool is one of the sites where information needs to be filter the most, due to the fact that underage childs could be exposed to ethical or dangerous information from the websites. In order for being able to filter the internet accesibility, the administrator needs to introduce a firewall into the network, which by a set of comands, would allow the administrator to block certain subject/key phrases or tools in order to prevent the unautorised users from downloading prhibited information.
One of th flaws with firewalls is that they can be outsmarted by simple steps, such as using proxis, which hide the web page name into another format/code, or installing an special browser which would allow you to maintain anonimity such as the "Tor browser", or as we do... by typing https on the we searcher in order to enter the outer security comands.
6. In a recognised company, messages were not secure enough and important information was stolen. Chief executives decided to implement cryptography by using encryption messages whenever an employee needed to send information to another employee. [each employee would have a private key and a public key to receive and send messages]
Describe two the advantages of encrypted messages.
· Your message is changed completele so no one can understand what you wnted to say because they need the key to decrypt that exact statement or information.
· If someone wants information of your computer and this info is encrypted, but he or she has the pascode to your files they will not be able to steal your info because it is useles unless they have a haking method for tha kind of encryption.
Distinguish the differences between a private and a public key.
Private | Public
· It is only in your computer. | · It is sent arround in the web or network.
· You need it to decypher the message. | · you need it to encrypt the message.
· Only your computer knows it because it is unique and used only by you | ·Everyone can know it and use it because it is only used to encript.
Explain how encryption methods could be miss used and cause problems to the company.
Because encrypting a message can be done by any one but decryption only be the person who is supposed to recive that info. And if employees can encrypt messages and send them to other wok partners the higher rank people and even the lower rank people will not be able to know what is going on between this pair of people, so the boss cant keep track of what they are doing, planning or saying about him; so either he trust very well on his employees or an extreme condition could be that he states that every encrypting process of information or message that is going to be sent needs to be accepted and read by him before the encryption, this to keep track of employees' work as I said before.
7. A student from Alabama was accused of fraud when he used a computer to create fake identification cards. He sold the cards to students at the University(with personal information stolen from other people).He claimed that the cards were not made with the intention of using them to fake information, but for fun purposes. However, a great number of customers used the cards to fake their identities and commit robberies.
Identify the illegal issues involving this case.
The ilegal issues involving this case are fraud, rbberies and identity theft. (robbery wasn´t commited by the student)
Explain the relationship between identity theft and the use of fake ID cards.
By doing identity theft from stoleing the information from the victims when in the fraud, the student could use a format to create ID´s (or some edditor) and then pass the new eddited information into the cards.
Describe three examples of how people could increase their security and avoid identity theft.
People could increase their security by installing a firewall along with an antivirus in their computers, the firewall would make a revision of athe information entering and leaving the computer and so it would warn them if a suspicious file is entering, and the antivirus would prevent from some viruses that may harm the software and eliminate spyware.
By encripting their information, people would keep their information safe, as the thief won´t be able to decript it (read it).... unless the tihef stole the key as well.
Last but not least, by avoiding suspicious mails, mesages or pop-ups, woul reduce the risck of having trouble of the kind (avoid stupidity).
Michael Brandy is a music producer that has just bought two professionals microphones for his studio. Michael, uses the computer softwere for recording and edit sessions, which the mics will be plugged to.
Paper 1 ITGS December 2010 (second generation)
1. Urban Outfitters, a deparment store, has aon online server by which costumers can access to the online catalogue and buy clothers. They use an extranet to communicate with different companies that provide the store with supplies.
- Define the term extranet
An extranet is a private interoganizational information system connecting the intranets of 2 or more companies in a e-market place- Describe what's the process in which a costumer can buy a certain item on the store through the online catalogue.
First, the consumer enters her/his login and password, the server receives the information and accept the request for entering to the online catalogue of the store, then the consumer selects the item that she/he wants to buy with his/her credit card and send the request to the server, the server checks if your bank account has the enough funds for buying the item you selected and , if it does, the server accepts the request of buying the item and charges the money to your credit card. The item will be send to you afterwards.- Explain the security issues that are involved when costumers use Urban Outfitters' onilne catalogue.
Some security issues are that maybe you think you are entering to the official webpage and you upload the information to access your credit card but then you realize that you have suffered from a phishing attack. The information of your credit card has been sent so another person could access to it and steal all your money. Another security issue that may arise is that maybe your computer has a worm so while you send the request to buy an item , the worm will make the program to repeat itself a lot and you may lose a lot of money because of that.2. New Think is a company dedicated to create IT solutions. Inside the company they have a B2E environment for communication and management. It allows users to send encrypetd messages. A team inside New Think has decided they should communicate about their new project only through encrypted messages.
- Define the term encryption
Any procedure used to convert text into cipher text (encrypted message) to prevent anyone but the intended person from reading that data.- Describe two advantages of sending and encrypted message using public-key encryption.
First you can make sure that nobody reads your message but only the intended person that has the private key thus protecting sensible information that could have been sent.Second, as the message is encrypted you can almost be sure that it won’t get modified by unwanted persons or if modified you can notice it thus keeping the message safe.
Third, this mechanism doesn’t rely on passwords, which can be easily cracked either by a program or by social hacking or in the most common cases you forget them. So the message remains safe.
Fourth, this mechanism uses two keys: a private one and a public one. Both can determine if the message was corrupted and are very difficult to crack.
- Explain how the ability to send encrypted messages between the staff, can threaten the company's security.
As the messages can’t be read by anyone and are very hard to crack (as proven in the above question) the company won’t be able to distinguish if two persons are sending work-related information about the new project in order to protect intellectual property or if they are sending each other the plans for kidnapping the CEO because these two encrypted conversations would apparently look exactly the same and therefore threatening the company’s security.3. The Technological Research University has decided to put a WLAN in its campus. They already have a LAN in the place and it connects all the staff computer. The main aim of the WLAN is to provide teachers and students with access to the university platform, where contents of all their subjects is placed.
- Define the term WLAN
A WLAN is a local area network that uses no physical wires. Sometimes a WLAN communicates with a wired LAN for access to its resources.- Describe two possible advantages for teachers when having access to a network.
Teachers can share information with their pupils via Internet, download useful information from different users and use the resources of the network such as hardware (printer) and software (different applications or programs).- Explain how does the school can be sure that only students and teachers connect to the WLAN
They could protect their network with a WEP address that needs an specific password to be accessed. If the user does not know the password, then it will not have access to the network.Also the school could use a hidden SSID so only the school's staff can enter and the WLAN doesn't appear when any computer scans for available networks thus making sure that only allowed people have access to it.
4. Sweets & Bands Company bought a lot of 10 new computers. They weren't aware that there was no antivirus installed on them until they started using them. The owner has talked to a friend who knows much about computers, and he recommended him to install an antivirus to each computer and place a firewall into the network.
- Define the term firewall
A part of a computer system or network that is designed to block unauthorized access.- Define the term antivirus
The antivirus is a program that protects a computer against viruses by identifying and removing any computer viruses found in incoming files, memory and storage media.- Describe two types of computer attacks that a computer without an antivirus can face.
Your computer can suffer for a Denial of service attack which is an assault whose purpose is to disrupt computer access to an Internet service and can also suffer for a spoofing attack which is a tecnigue intruders use to make their network to to appear leggitimate and is not.- Explain why all the computers of Sweets $ Bands should have an antivirus installed.
All the computers should have an antivirus due to the fact that if not they can suffer for several computer attacks that could damage the computer and that could lead to the loss of relevant information abut the company. Furthermore you may lose some important personal information, for example, if your computer suffers for phishing, when accesing to your bank acount or the bank account of the company and write all the information needed to do a transaction, the information will be sent to another place and you could lose all the money in the account because someone else will be able to access to it.5. A primary school just created a computer lab inside their facilities to teach children basic computer knowlegde and the use of the Internet. After consulting with many experts, the director decided to install a wired connection to connect all the computers instead of a wireless network. They were also told to buy a firewall to control Internet traffic within their network.
- Identify at least four components or devices that the wired network should have.
Desktop computers (most common in primary schools), Printer, The firewall system along with the internet acces and a scaner.- Describe three advantages of using wired Internet connections instead of a wireless connection.
First, wired connections are faster. As they don't rely on air signals like a wireless connection,that could be easily interrupted by many external factors such as walls they work faster, because it hard to interrupt a physical connectior, or if interrupted you can easily notice it and fix the problem faster than what a wireless connection will takeSecond, they are harder to crack. As they depend on physical wires , it would be very hard for an unwanted person to have access to it becaus ein order to do so that person would have to physically get the cable and connect it to his/her computer, not as in wireless connection, that with a click in about 10min. you can crack a network.
Third, wired connections are relatively cheaper. Consider that the price here in Mexico for 1m of Ethernet cable is from 30-50 pesos and the price for a very cheap wireless anthenna is around 300$, and even if we consider the different currencies arround the world and the nowadays economic crisis it is still a lot cheaper to produce metres and metres of an 8-copper-cable-wire that to produce that same amount of wireless anthennas. Also the prices given by an ISP for a wired connection are lower than the prices for the usage of a wireless one.
Fourth, they are to a certain extent easier to mantain. With wireless connections , even though they seem to not need anything but a wireless anthenna they are trickier to mantain because if there is a problem with the connection you cannot notice it as easy as you could with a wired one, this mainly because in a wired connection there are a lot of factors that could affect your connection that you may not be able to solve quite fast such as wind, thick walls, other wireless connections interfering, a problem with the ISP, a problem with your anthenna among others. In a wired connection you don't have that many factors and if a problem occurs it could be a lot easier to solve. Also even though it looks like a lot of work to give regular maintennance to a wired connection, it is actually easier anf more effective that to give regular maintennance to a WLAN.
- Explain why is it useful to have a firewall installed in the network of the school.
Aschool is one of the sites where information needs to be filter the most, due to the fact that underage childs could be exposed to ethical or dangerous information from the websites. In order for being able to filter the internet accesibility, the administrator needs to introduce a firewall into the network, which by a set of comands, would allow the administrator to block certain subject/key phrases or tools in order to prevent the unautorised users from downloading prhibited information.One of th flaws with firewalls is that they can be outsmarted by simple steps, such as using proxis, which hide the web page name into another format/code, or installing an special browser which would allow you to maintain anonimity such as the "Tor browser", or as we do... by typing https on the we searcher in order to enter the outer security comands.
6. In a recognised company, messages were not secure enough and important information was stolen. Chief executives decided to implement cryptography by using encryption messages whenever an employee needed to send information to another employee. [each employee would have a private key and a public key to receive and send messages]
- Describe two the advantages of encrypted messages.
· Your message is changed completele so no one can understand what you wnted to say because they need the key to decrypt that exact statement or information.· If someone wants information of your computer and this info is encrypted, but he or she has the pascode to your files they will not be able to steal your info because it is useles unless they have a haking method for tha kind of encryption.
- Distinguish the differences between a private and a public key.
Private | Public· It is only in your computer. | · It is sent arround in the web or network.
· You need it to decypher the message. | · you need it to encrypt the message.
· Only your computer knows it because it is unique and used only by you | ·Everyone can know it and use it because it is only used to encript.
- Explain how encryption methods could be miss used and cause problems to the company.
Because encrypting a message can be done by any one but decryption only be the person who is supposed to recive that info. And if employees can encrypt messages and send them to other wok partners the higher rank people and even the lower rank people will not be able to know what is going on between this pair of people, so the boss cant keep track of what they are doing, planning or saying about him; so either he trust very well on his employees or an extreme condition could be that he states that every encrypting process of information or message that is going to be sent needs to be accepted and read by him before the encryption, this to keep track of employees' work as I said before.7. A student from Alabama was accused of fraud when he used a computer to create fake identification cards. He sold the cards to students at the University(with personal information stolen from other people).He claimed that the cards were not made with the intention of using them to fake information, but for fun purposes. However, a great number of customers used the cards to fake their identities and commit robberies.
- Identify the illegal issues involving this case.
The ilegal issues involving this case are fraud, rbberies and identity theft. (robbery wasn´t commited by the student)- Explain the relationship between identity theft and the use of fake ID cards.
By doing identity theft from stoleing the information from the victims when in the fraud, the student could use a format to create ID´s (or some edditor) and then pass the new eddited information into the cards.- Describe three examples of how people could increase their security and avoid identity theft.
People could increase their security by installing a firewall along with an antivirus in their computers, the firewall would make a revision of athe information entering and leaving the computer and so it would warn them if a suspicious file is entering, and the antivirus would prevent from some viruses that may harm the software and eliminate spyware.By encripting their information, people would keep their information safe, as the thief won´t be able to decript it (read it).... unless the tihef stole the key as well.
Last but not least, by avoiding suspicious mails, mesages or pop-ups, woul reduce the risck of having trouble of the kind (avoid stupidity).